Critic Reviews

All in all, Killing Floor is an outstanding experience that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve. While minor complaints exist, particularly regarding the difficulty curve of the final round, I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for a solid zombie game, co-op experience or a way to spend $20.

Multiplayer-based zombie mods have been around for years, mostly based on the Half-Life games, and Tripwire Interactive has finally released their new game - which has evolved over several years from being an Unreal Tournament 2004 mod - for $20 on Steam. Killing Floor pits six players against hordes of AI-controlled zombies in a cooperative environment, and it does it in a way that may seem like it borrows a bit too much from Left 4 Dead, but that ends once you've played a couple of rounds.

Killing Floor is a game that’s a little bit different every time you play it. This variety is sure to be enhanced by the future DLC packages planned by Tripwire. If you enjoy first-person shooters or survival horror games, I see no reason why this game shouldn’t be part of your collection.

Killing Floor is a game about survival. You and five others shoot mean-looking guys until you’ve killed all the mean-looking guys. After a wave of mean-looking guys, you’re given a couple minutes to regroup and reassess, and then you’re back to shooting mean-looking guys. This repeats until you finish the set amount of shooting mean-looking guys on the server. After that, it’s victory and then you move onto shooting mean-looking guys on different servers. It’s simple, blunt, and very frank, and there’s an honest intensity in that. For a paltry $20, you will not be going wrong with this purchase.

To sum this review up: Killing Floor is a strong game in its own right. The core gameplay is rock solid and has lasting replayability. The variety and detail of weapons are outstanding. The sound effects and music are great. The number of different zombie types is impressive, but still lacks something. Despite its flaws and considering its cheap price, this game isn’t one to pass up. If you have enough trouble finishing a Left 4 Dead campaign on normal, then maybe give Killing Floor a miss. If you’re a Left 4 Dead pro or you’re just after another survival horror title, definitely give Killing Floor a go!

I know what you’re thinking. It’s survival horror, it’s co-op, it’s an FPS and it’s got zombies. You could be forgiven for accusing Killing Floor of jumping on the grindhouse bandwagon that Left4Dead launched in 2008, but that would be unfair on the team that has spent the last four years putting this game together.

Killing Floor shows its age but still manages to deliver a fun and frenetic experience for numerous players. It's not going to be up there on any Game of the Year Awards but it's certainly well priced and worth picking up as an alternative team based cooperative shooter.

It’s no left4dead, but as a downloadable PC game that runs ok on old hardware you’ll get some thrills. It’s pretty pointless playing it on your own, and it’s good to have a microphone as well for online – no one has time to type when there’s a mutant on your face

For those of you looking to train hard for the zombie apocalypse long predicted by Max Brooks, and not have to deal with any silly cinematic conventions doing so, Killing Floor might very well be the sort of thing you need to sharpen your training regimen.

It may not have gotten the attention that other high profile shooters have received, but Killing Floor is a fun game for up to six players to enjoy as they blast mutated creatures to bits. While the single-player experience is pretty much non-existent and there are still a large number of bugs that have to be contended with, there's enough of a foundation here for players to enjoy. Hop online and kill monsters for Queen and Country.

Tripwire Interactives Killing Floor is what you would expect of a polished mod, but doesn’t exceed expectations as a retail game. It’s good, but unfortunately far from perfect. A nice addition to the survival-horror genre though, and it has an attractively cheap price tag.

It isn't perfect. It's not the sort of game that future generations will gather to celebrate, linking hands and singing sad songs of fond remembrance. It is, however, clever, boisterous, faintly silly and relatively cheap. So to return to my opening question, Killing Floor's relationship with Left 4 Dead certainly isn't equivalent to that of Tesco Value baked beans and Heinz. It's more complex and nuanced than that. I think it's up there on a par with a tin of HP.